The Hindu Business Line : Sheffield Haworth plans India foray

New Delhi, Oct. 23 In order to leverage the growing financial services sector in the country, international executive search firm Sheffield Haworth, which specialises in financial services, is poised to enter the country soon.

The company is forming a joint venture — Sheffield and Vermark Consultants — with two partners in India, Mr Deepak Verma, who will head the India operations and serve as Managing Director, and Mr Mark Runacres, who will be a strategic advisor.

“We see a huge opportunity in the country and estimate that in the next four to five years just the banking and insurance industry in the country will add around 600,000 professionals. Currently, we see a talent squeeze in the sector at all levels in the country as well as globally. We will be recruiting out of India for global players as well, for Indian finance professionals enjoy a sound reputation overseas,” said Mr Deepak Verma. The company would be opening offices in Delhi and Mumbai by the end of the year.

Claiming to be the first specialised financial services headhunters to enter the country, Mr Verma said that apart from banks and insurance, Sheffield would be operating in the entire gamut of the segment including asset management, wealth management, private equity, and consulting firms. The skills sought after in the market currently include those in risk management, acturial science, valuations and professionals who have global experience in investment banking and understand the complexities of the global market place.

Sheffield’s Indian operations, which will have finance specialists conducting the job searches, targets the movement of 500 to 1,000 finance professionals of the upper and middle rung over a three to five-year time frame. With a global client list of names such as Barclays, UBS and Lehman Brothers among others, Mr Verma sees India as an active market which will “comfortably contributing 5 per cent to the global revenues of the company”.

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